Shapiro's $48 billion budget calls for education funding, raising minimum wage and legalizing recreational marijuana
HARRISBURG (KDKA) -- Gov. Josh Shapiro submitted a $48 billion budget with no new taxes to the state legislature on Tuesday afternoon.
As KDKA-TV political editor Jon Delano explains, Shapiro's address to lawmakers focused on the future.
The setting was unique – the Capitol rotunda because the usual site, the state House chamber, is under repair.
But this governor – a generation younger than any of his predecessors – is very future-oriented, and increased education funding was his starting point.
"My budget builds on the progress we've made, setting aside $1.5 billion, including $300 million this year alone, to make our schools healthy and safe," Shapiro told lawmakers.
Shapiro wants more money to repair schools, to train and hire more teachers and to improve the quality of public education to meet constitutional requirements.
"This is ambitious. None of this is easy and all of it will require us to work together," he said.
And he coupled this with a new higher education program that unites the state's 15 community colleges with the 10 state-owned universities, pumping more money to make schools more affordable.
"Under my plan, no student or family making the median income or below will have to pay more than $1,000 per semester for tuition and fees in this new system," said the governor.
Shapiro also spent time on economic development, saying he was cutting red tape to make it easier for companies to locate here.
"As a result of our direct engagement, we secured more than $1.2 billion in new private sector investment," he said.
And he outlined an ambitious economic development strategy with a half billion-dollar bond to develop shovel-ready sites, noting neighboring states are spending more on this than Pennsylvania.
"I'm sick and tired of losing to friggin' Ohio. We need to catch up right now," said the governor.
And the future, he said, depends on better public transit as well.
"Under my plan, transit systems across Pennsylvania will receive $1.5 billion over the next five years," he said.
While much of that money will go to southeastern Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh Regional Transit will get an additional $40 million.
But some of the governor's biggest applause lines came from other issues – like recreational marijuana, noting that states all around us have legalized cannabis.
"It's time to catch up. I ask you to come together and send to my desk a bill that legalizes marijuana," he said.
He also asked for legislative relief for those ever convicted of marijuana use.
"Those who have been convicted for nonviolent possession of small amounts of marijuana have their records expunged," says the governor.
Another issue popular with many, and already enacted in the states surrounding us: raising the minimum wage.
"Come on, guys, let's be real. Our minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour for 15 years," said Shapiro. "It's time we raise our minimum wage to $15 an hour. Because we are falling behind."
And then the governor touched on an issue never raised so publicly before – the absence of feminine hygiene products for girls in schools, citing his wife, First Lady Lori Shapiro.
"This is something we don't talk often about, but the First Lady has spent time this year meeting with these young women and hearing their stories."
"Lori has spoken to girls who have literally missed school because they got their period and had to run home in the middle of the day because nothing was available for them at school."
Shapiro said his budget would make those products available in schools at no cost.
Even with additional spending on all the programs he outlined, the governor said the state would have an $11 billion surplus.
Republican lawmakers disputed that, calling the budget plan, "irresponsible and misleading." And since Republicans control the state Senate, it's not clear what part of the governor's budget will actually become law.